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Some Imperative Needs for the Study of Hispanic 

American History in Our Schools 

and Colleges 



By 
CHARLES W. HACKETT 



Reprinted from The Texas History Teachers' Bulletin, 
Volume X, Number 2, December, 1921 



*c 



"By TpBtusfwr 

APR 26 1922 



SOME IMPERATIVE NEEDS FOR THE STUDY 

OF HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORY IN OUR 

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES 1 

South of the United States of America, extending from 
the Straits of Florida and the Rio Grande on the north to 
Cape Horn in the south, lie the twenty republics of Hispanic 
America. Of these republics, eighteen owe their existence 
directly and solely to Spain, and in them the Spanish lan- 
guage, the religion of Spain, and Spanish institutions are 
firmly planted ; in minor points they vary slightly but there 
is in general a marked uniformity among them. Another of 
these twenty republics, Brazil, the largest — larger even than 
the United States — and the most populous — containing as it 
does more than one-fourth the total population of all of 
Hispanic America — springs from a small corner of a small 
region of southwestern Europe and owns Portugal as the 
mother country. Still another of these republics, Haiti, has 
been influenced in its historical development by both France 
and Spain, but principally by the former; French is the 
language of the country, and, generally speaking, the insti- 
tutions are French. In no instance does the national ex- 
istence of any of these republics antedate the year 1810, 
while the last quarter of a century has seen the birth of 
two new ones, Cuba and Panama. 

The combined area of these various republics is slightly 
over 8,000,000 square miles, and living in this vast area are 
approximately 83,800,000 people. Of this number only about 
30,000,000, or 35 per cent, are of pure, or nearly pure, 
European extraction; the other 65 per cent is composed of 
native Indians, half-breeds, negroes, mulattoes, and a small 
sprinkling of non-European foreigners. It is not to be un- 
derstood, however, that this ratio of Europeans to non- 
Europeans holds fast for any individual country. Argen- 
tine, Uruguay, and Costa Rica contain almost pure Euro- 



!Read before the History Teachers' Section of the Texas State 
Teachers' Association at Dallas, Texas, November 25, 1921. 



pean populations, while in Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela 
only about 10 per cent of the people are of pure European 
extraction. 

Of these twenty republics of Hispanic America, some, of 
their own initiative, may never progress very far beyond the 
stage to which they have already attained ; others as Argen- 
tine, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, and Cuba have already 
acquired new importance in the eyes of the world. But 
aside from individual countries, the Hispanic American re- 
publics, taken collectively, or in groups — as Argentine, 
Brazil, and Chile, which form the famous A. B. C. confed- 
eration — have most certainly assumed a very important posi- 
tion in the world today which gives promise of a much 
greater importance in the years to come. If for no other 
reason, so great an area and so thinly populated, where such 
vast natural resources, of which other nations are in need, 
can be found comparatively untouched, is sure to exercise 
some day a strong balance of power. The last generation 
witnessed the rise of the United States of America to the 
highest pinnacle of power and influence ; it is no wild stretch 
of the imagination to point out the possibility of a corre- 
sponding development of Hispanic America in the next few 
generations. 

So much for Hispanic America in general and for its 
potential possibilities. It is the purpose of this paper, how- 
ever, to show, in the first place, the relation between the 
historical development of Hispanic America and the ex- 
pansion and development of European civilization in gen- 
eral, and, in the second place, to explain the particular in- 
terest and connection between certain important but often 
over-looked facts in Hispanic American history and other 
better known ones in the historical development of the 
United States of America. In short it is proposed to point 
out and explain certain of the neglected facts in the his- 
torical evolution of Hispanic America that make imperative 
the study of its history in our schools and colleges if a broad 
rather than a narrow view is to be taken of the expansion 
and development of western, or European culture, and if the 
international rather than the provincial view is to be taken 

—2— 



with regard to the history of our present United States. 

Colonial American history, used in its broad sense, can 
only be properly understood by regarding America as a 
projection of Europe and by studying its history as a part 
of the expansion of European peoples. When studied in 
this way the achievements of the Spaniards, the French, and 
the English in America come no longer to be regarded as 
detached or isolated movements. In other words, when so 
studied, it is clearly seen that the advance of the Spaniards 
from Panama and Mexico City, to and beyond the Rio 
Grande ; the movement of the French down the St. Lawrence 
to and around the Great Lakes into the Mississippi Valley ; 
and the expansion of the English from the tidewater and 
piedmont regions of the Atlantic seaboard to and beyond the 
Alleghanies were but closely related movements in the great 
international struggle that was waged at the expense of 
France and Spain for seven-eights of the present United 
States. 

It is not from this viewpoint, however, that the history 
of America has usually been presented ; certainly it has not 
been so presented by writers of United States history — 
more commonly but improperly and presumptiously called 
American history. Too often, in fact almost unanimously, 
the thesis of so-called American historians has been that of 
the westward advance of the English from the Atlantic sea- 
board, without anything like proportionate importance being 
given to the French and with virtually no attention being 
paid to the Spaniards. As regards the latter they have 
seen only the dramatic and the spectacular side of the estab- 
lishment of Spain in America and only a part of that. The 
achievements of Columbus, of Cortes until the fall of Mexico 
City in 1521, and the spectacular expeditions of Cabeza de 
Vaca, Coronado, and De Soto within the present limits of 
the United States are usually related with varying degree 
of detail. But here the story of Spain in America usually 
ends, and, strange to say, right at the point where the history 
of Spain in the United States really begins. 

Now, if a logical perspective of the historical development 
of America in general, and of that of the United States in 



particular, is to be attained, it must be held in mind that 
Spain had been establishing settlements and had been ex- 
tending her dominion in America for 115 years prior to the 
founding of the first permanent French settlement in Amer- 
ica and for 116 years prior to the founding of Jamestown. 
Up to the point then where France and England begin to 
compete with Spain for overseas dominion, the history of 
Spain in America can, in fact, must be, treated as a separate 
movement, or really as American history in its broad sense. 
Therefore, let it be held in mind what Spain had accom- 
plished by that time; in other words, what were the ad- 
vantages which Spain had secured at the time that the 
French and the English established rival colonies in Amer- 
ica. During this more than a century Spain had not been 
idle. Not to mention the Portuguese occupation and settle- 
ment of Brazil, it may summarily be said that Spanish do- 
minion had been permanently and almost completely estab- 
lished within the present nine Spanish American republics 
of South America. It had been completely and definitely 
established in Central America and in the larger of the 
West Indies. Moreover, New Spain, or Mexico, since the 
fall of Mexico City in 1521 — which event properly marks 
the beginning rather than the end of the Spanish conquest — 
had expanded steadily to the north by three main lines of 
approach, namely, the west coast, the central plateau, and 
the east coast, until between the years 1565 and 1572 Span- 
ish Florida, and between the years 1598 and 1609 Spanish 
New Mexico, had been established. 

The history of Spain in America, then, from 1492 until 
1609 is that of the expansion of certain European peoples 
(Spaniards to be sure but Europeans just the same) in the 
region extending from Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile 
on the south to Santa Fe and St. Augustine on the north — 
a record for the establishment of empire and dominion that 
has not an equal in the history of the world and therefore 
deserving of full treatment in the narrative of the develop- 
ment and spread of western civilization in general. 

But aside from the general cultural interest and import- 
ance of this movement, the history of Spain within the pres- 
ent limits of the United States up to the year 1609 is that of 

_4_ 



the permanent establishment of Europeans in the first two of 
the present forty-eight states of the United States — the first, 
Florida, forty-two years, and the second, New Mexico, nine 
years before the founding of Jamestown. Nor was this all 
that Spain had done. After establishing St. Augustine with 
1500 Europeans in 1565, Menendez de Aviles extended the 
frontier of settlement to the north until either Spanish mis- 
sions, or garrisons, or both, were established on the Georgia 
and the South Carolina coasts ;in northern Alabama ; in west- 
ern North Carolina near the present site of Asheville; and 
even on the Rappahannock River in present Virginia in 1571, 
or thirty-six years before the English arrived there. More- 
over, Juan de Onate, the founder of New Mexico, after es- 
tablishing his 130 colonists with their families and over 
7000 head of livestock in the upper Rio Grande Valley, just 
south of the present southern boundary of Colorado, re- 
explored the country formerly discovered by Coronado — 
this latter discovery being the one which was made just 
fifty-eight years earlier and the one with which Channing 
in his monumental History of the United States brings to a 
close the story of Spanish achievements in the United 
States. 

In view of the above facts, then, is not the history of 
Hispanic America to 1609 more than the expansion of Euro- 
pean peoples in America? Is it not as much a part of the 
story of the exploration and establishment of permanent 
European settlement within the United States as is the story 
of the English colonies in Virginia and New England, or that 
of the Dutch in New York, or that of the Dutch and the 
Swedes on the Delaware, all of which were established a num- 
ber of years later? And this being true, does not the history 
of the United States logically and chronologically begin with 
the founding of Spanish Florida and New Mexico rather 
than with the establishment of English Virginia? And this 
also being true how is the proper viewpoint of the history of 
the United States to be attained if the Hispanic American 
movement which actually founded our first two states is not 
taught in our schools and colleges ? Certainly this viewpoint 
can never be attained by depending on texts, which, like 

—5— 



that of Channing's, narrate almost solely the story of the 
English advance to the west and stop their discussion of the 
Spanish movement at the point where it really begins. In 
truth, such a movement as the Hispanic American move- 
ment within the present United States is just as important, 
and, from the standpoint of later developments, more im- 
portant, than the story of the French advance from the St. 
Lawrence, to and around the Great Lakes and into the 
Illinois country and the Mississippi Valley. 

However, if the Spanish occupation of Florida and New 
Mexico, prior to the permanent coming of the English and 
French, really marked the end of Hispanic American history, 
looked at either from the viewpoint of America in general 
or that of the United States in particular, there would prob- 
ably be no justification for such a conclusion. It is, how- 
ever, after 1609 that the significance of Hispanic American 
history, certainly from the international standpoint and 
from that of the history of the United States, really begins. 
In South America and in Central America, after the estab- 
lishment of Spanish dominion, which was practically com- 
plete there before 1600, there never was any real serious 
menace to the Spaniards from a foreign aggressor, and there 
is in those parts nothing that particularly interests us until 
the struggle for independence in the early nineteenth cen- 
tury, other than the consolidation of dominion and the estab- 
lishment of institutions. In North America the story is a 
different one. With the establishment of Jamestown and 
Quebec there were introduced on the stage of American 
history, on which up to that time Spain had really been the 
only actor, the French and English actors in one of the 
greatest international dramas of all time, and one that was 
staged right here in our own Texas and in the great Trans- 
Mississippi West, the first act of which ended with any one 
of the following significant events : the failure and death of 
La Salle in Texas, 1687 ; or the glorious revolution in Eng- 
land and the political readjustments in both Europe and 
America that were incident thereto, 1688-89 ; or the Spanish 
occupation of East Texas as a buffer colony against the 
French, 1690. 



-6— 



During the period from 1609 until anyone of the above 
dates, the real international rivalries of Spain, France, and 
England were only beginning to take shape. During these 
years the English, as is well known, were occupying the tide- 
water region and were just beginning to occupy the piedmont 
region, which, as Turner so ably shows, was the second step 
in the Anglo-American westward advance. At the same 
time the French extended their frontier of settlement down 
the St. Lawrence and around the Great Lakes into the Illi- 
nois country, explored the Mississippi River to its mouth, 
and, under La Salle, founded a temporary settlement on 
the Texas coast. The story of the French achievements 
during these years is also well known ; Parkman has immor- 
talized it and the outlines of it are to be found in almost 
every text-book of United States and even European his- 
tory. But what were the Spaniards, who were the first to 
establish themselves in this region doing? Strangely, so- 
called American and United States histories are silent as re- 
gards the action of the third actor in the great international 
drama that was just beginning. In fact only one text-book 
of American history (Bolton and Marshall, Colonization of 
North America, New York, 1920) contains an outline of the 
activities of the Spaniards within the present limits of the 
United States between the years 1609 and 1690. 

But Spain had not been idle during these years. Securely 
established in the upper Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico 
the Spaniards there entered into trade relations with the 
Indians to the north as far as Kansas and Nebraska. To the J 
west Spanish dominion and Spanish institutions were defi- / 
nltely "established as far as the Hopi country of northeastern/ 
Arizona. A southward movement from New Mexico met a 
northward movement from present Chihuahua resulting in 
the permanent establishment of Paso del Norte, or modern 
El Paso, in the year 1659; and from that year El Paso 
became one of the most important places on the entire north- 
ern frontier, as it is today on the international boundary be- 
tween Mexico and the United States. Finally, by the middle 
of the seventeenth century, interest of the Spaniards in New 
Mexico was aroused in the San Angelo, Texas, region due 

—7— 



to the discovery of pearls on the Concho (shell) River and 
the development of the fur trade in that region. From 
,Santa Fe annual expeditions were made to the Concho River, 
also called the Nueces (from the number of nuts found there) 
from 1850 until 1680, during which time reports were heard 
of the "great kingdom of the Tejas," further east; the result 
was, a new Eldorado appeared on the eastern horizon. And, 
far fetched as it may seem, the Spanish viceroy at Mexico 
City in 1684 was considering the establishment of a pearl 
fishery and a presidio in the San Angelo region when news 
of the founding of La Salle's settlement on the Texas coast 
in that year diverted the viceroy's interest from the gradual 
expansion of New Mexico into West Texas to the danger 
point on the Gulf Coast, now menaced by the foreign ag- 
gressor. As a result the expedition that was sent out to 
reconnoitre the French and destroy their settlement was or- 
ganized in the newly created province of Coahuila, just below 
the Rio Grande. And, after the abandoned French fort was 
found and destroyed, it was from Coahuila that came the 
Spanish missionaries and civilians who established the first 
Spanish settlement in East Texas as a buffer to the French. 
What Texan, at least, is there who can say that this move- 
ment is not just as much a part of United States history 
as the founding of the temporary French posts of Fort 
Crevecour and Fort St. Louis in the Illinois country? But, 
while it is a part of United States history, it must not be 
forgotten that it is even more a part of Hispanic American 
history ; most of all it is a part of the three-sided interna- 
tional contest that was shaping itself for the control of the 
Mississippi Valley. 

If the period from 1609 until 1690 constitutes the first 
act in this struggle, the period from 1690 to 1763 constitutes 
the second act, which may be characterized as one of intense 
rivalry between the three contending actors. And yet it has 
been the rule of historians of the United States to relate only 
the activities of two of these actors — the French and the 
English. Parkman is largely responsible for this; in his 
incomparable way he has told the story of A Half Century 
of Conflict, or the story of the French and English wars 



from 1713 until the elimination of the French in 1763. But 
Parkman did not know, or did not note, that there was 
"another half century of conflict" that was being waged at 
the same time between the Spaniards and French along a 
rough line extending from the Gulf coast by way of the Red 
River to the plains of Nebraska. 

This necessitates a word about the Spanish achievements 
within the present United States between the years 1690 and 
1763. Established in 1690, the East Texas missions were 
abandoned in 1693; at the same time interest was trans- 
ferred to the Pensacola region where a presidio was estab- 
lished in 1698. The reasons for all this were that the French 
were not as menacing to East Texas as had been anticipated, 
while the English from South Carolina were beginning to 
gain the confidence of the Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees and 
other tribes in northern Alabama and Georgia, and all this 
seriously threatened Spain's hold in the Florida and east 
Gulf Coast region. Then in 1699 when French Louisiana 
was established with its capital first at Biloxi, and later at 
Mobile, just a few miles west of the Spanish garrison at 
Pensacola, a veritable wedge was thereby driven between the 
Spanish provinces of Florida on the one side, and New Mex- 
ico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Coahuila on the other. In view of the 
renewed French encroachments in Louisiana, particularly 
the founding of the French outpost of Natchitoches on the 
Red River and the commercial schemes of its founder, St. 
Denis, East Texas was reoccupied by the Spaniads in 1716 
with six missions, a garrison, and settlers, and in 1721 a 
second garrison was established at Los Adaes, just 15 miles 
from Natchitoches. At the same time Los Adaes became the 
capital of Spanish Texas and remained such — located as it 
was in the present state of Louisiana — for fifty years, or 
until after the French were driven from the continent and 
Spain had fallen heir to Western Louisiana, which carried 
her frontier to the Mississippi River. 

Thus the French and Spanish frontiers approached each 
other in the Pensacola-Mobile region and in the Los Adeas- 
Nachitoches region, with the result that in each there was 
constant friction. But these were not the only regions in 

—9— 



which the "other fifty years of conflict" raged. From New 
Mexico the establishment of a Spanish settlement in present 
Scott County, Kansas, and a garrison on the North Platte in 
Nebraska, or Wyoming, had been authorized by 1720. But 
the annihilation of a force of 110 Spaniards from New 
Mexico and a large number of Indian allies on the South 
Platte in that year by Indians under French influence from 
as far east as the Great Lakes put an end to Spanish expan- 
sion in that field. However, as far as New Mexico and its 
frontier were concerned, from that time until the final with- 
drawal of the French from the continent in 1763, the story 
is one of the gradual encroachments of the French from the 
Illinois and Lower Louisiana regions, up the Red, the Arkan- 
sas, the Osage, and the Platte rivers toward New Mexico, 
and the efforts on the part of the Spaniards to counteract 
the growing French influence among the neighboring Indian 
tribes and to put a stop to illicit trade between the French 
of Louisiana and the Spaniards at Santa Fe. 

In addition to this "other fifty years of conflict," which all 
scientific historians will agree should be studied in the light 
of the Spanish as well as the French historical development 
in America, Spain continued in this period to consolidate and 
expand her territorial possessions. With East Texas estab- 
lished again in 1716, a half-way station was needed, and the 
founding of San Antonio supplied this need in 1718. It 
soon rose above the importance of a half-way station, how- 
ever, for it became the base for holding back the Apaches, 
and the base from which new mission centers were opened 
up at Rockdale, at San Saba, on the Nueces, at the mouth 
of the Trinity, and in the Corpus Christi region. At the 
same time new presidios and civil settlements were estab- 
lished at a number of these new centers and entirely new 
areas were colonized for the first time by Europeans, par- 
ticularly the region along the Rio Grande from Laredo to the 
Brownsville region. 

Further west Spanish dominion was at the same time, 
extended from modern Sonora to the Gila River in Arizona, 
and today in that desert region, just nine miles south of 
Tucson, Arizona, there stands the most beautiful Spanish 

—10— 



mission in all of North America— San Javier del Bac— 
as a monument to Father Kino who founded it in the early 
eighteenth century. 

So much for Spain's part in the period from 1690 to 
1763. The fact that the French were eliminated from the 
great international struggle in 1763, however, did not mean 
that that struggle was over as far as the Spaniards and the 
English were concerned, for their frontiers now met at the 
Mississippi, besides extending, after 1783, in a practically 
straight line from St. Augustine west to New Orleans. 
Instead, in order to keep the English from crossing over the 
Mississippi, Spain was forced, though very reluctantly— 
because of her misgivings of the English— to occupy Western 
Louisiana, to which she had fallen heir by the treaty of 
1763. At the same time in order to anticipate the Russians 
and the Hudson's Bay Company's traders in that region, it 
was necessary for Spain to occupy Alta California in 1769. 
Thus it was that between the years 1763 and 1800 Spain in 
the Americas made her greatest single advance when her 
frontier was extended north from Lower California and 
southern Arizona to San Francisco, and from East Texas 
and Santa Fe, New Mexico, to St. Louis and the Des Moines, 
Iowa, region, where Spain's northernmost outpost was es- 
tablished. Nor was this all. From New Mexico the territory 
between there and the settlements in California was thor- 
oughly explored even as far north as Great Salt Lake and the 
Yellowstone region— the Spaniards going from St. Louis up 
the Missouri just twelve years before the more famous 
Lewis and Clark expedition over the same route. Between 
New Mexico and St. Louis the real Santa Fe trail was at the 
same time opened up. Yet of the establishment and expan- 
sion of Spanish dominion in the great Trans-Mississippi 
West, Channing does not say one word in his History of the 
United States, and other historians of the United States 
have maintained equal silence. However, since the ter- 
ritory west and south of a line drawn from St. Augus- 
tine to New Orleans, and from New Orleans to St. Louis 
and thence across to San Francisco is a part of the United 
States of America, the establishment and the development 

—11— 



of Spanish dominion therein is as much a part of the his- 
tory of the United States as it is a part of the expansion 
of European civilization in the region known as Hispanic 
America, and for both reasons should be taught and studied 
in our schools. 

From 1763 until the Gadsden's purchase in 1853, the His- 
panic American frontier was being pushed back by the 
Anglo-Americans. The bowing of Spain to English will in 
the Nootka Sound controversy in 1790, and the retrocession 
of Western Louisiana to Napoleon and his sale of it to the 
United States in 1803, constitute the first two backard steps 
of Spain in the Americas ; from the founding of Darien on 
the Isthmus of Panama in 1510 the Spanish advance to the 
north had been steady and continuous, first into central and 
then northern Mexico and from there into Florida, New 
Mexico, Texas, Arizona, California, and Louisiana. But 
with the first backward steps of the Spaniards taken in 
1790 and 1800, others soon followed, such as the loss of West 
Florida, due to its occupation and annexation by the United 
States in 1810; the cession of East Florida to the United 
States in 1819 ; the humiliating cessions provided for in the 
treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, and the even more 
humiliating "sale" of La Mesilla, better known as the Gads- 
den's Purchase, in 1853. 

However, the imperative needs for the study and teaching 
of Hispanic American history do not all arise in connection 
with the history of the Spanish colonial regime or with the 
beating back of the Spanish by the Anglo-American frontier ; 
instead other and equally important needs for the study of 
this neglected field of history are to be found when other 
world movements, and movements vitally concerning the 
present United States, are properly treated. For example, 
when, in the future, the proper historical perspective has 
been given to world events since 1776, the outstanding move- 
ment of that restless century and a half doubtless will be 
known as the triumph of virile democracy and republican 
institutions over entrenched and monarchial autocracy. 
Looked at in this way and studied with proportionate em- 
phasis, it is even now clearly seen that the revolt of the 

—12— 



English colonies in 1776 ; the French and Polish revolutions 
of a few years later ; the Spanish American revolutions of 
1810-1826 against the Bourbon Ferdinand VII and his sup- 
porting allies of the reactionary Holy Alliance ; the various 
revolutionary movements for democracy and self-govern- 
ment in Europe in the nineteenth century ; and, finally, the 
making of the world safe for democracy in the last great 
war, are all but closely related phases of the general move- 
ment initiated at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. 

Then, if this great world movement is to be considered 
from all angles, as it should be by scientific historians — if 
it is to be properly understood and properly presented — are 
we to be content to tell only of Vallege Forge and Yorktown, 
of the gory days of the revolutionary tribunal and the guillo- 
tine in France, and of freedom shrieking when Kosciusko 
fell at the time of the partition of his beloved Poland, and 
ignore or forget to tell of the incomparable patriotism and 
self-denial of San Martin in Argentine and on the west 
coast of South America; of the military and political am- 
bitions and triumphs of Bolivar, "El Libertador" of north- 
ern South America; and of the martyrdom of Hidalgo, 
Morelos, and a score of others on the altar of their beloved 
Mexico ? No ! Far be it. These men believed in and sac- 
rificed for exactly the same principles as did Washington, 
La Fayette, and Kosciusko; they took up the work where 
the latter had left it off and carried it into far distant parts 
of the world. And, far from belittling the work of the lat- 
ter, let it be remembered that the labors of San Martin and 
Bolivar, of Hidalgo, Morelos, and Guerrero freed from au- 
tocracy's strangling grasp and made safe republican insti- 
tutions and virile, though not full-blown democracy, in an 
area many times the size of the total area freed by their 
better known and immortalized American and European 
predecessors in the same work. To be sure, as yet, not as 
many people have been effected by the achievements of the 
Hispanic American revolutionary patroits as were by those 
of Washington and La Fayette. But consider this! At 
the entrance of the United States into the great war just 
closed, when the clarion notes of President Wilson's appeal 

—13— 



to humanity and civilized nations was heard round the world, 
two-thirds of the total area of Hispanic America and three- 
fifths of its total population— a total of 50,000,000 souls— 
either followed the lead of the United States in declaring 
war against autocratic Germany or severed diplomatic re- 
lations with that country, while not one of the remaining 
Hispanic American peoples expressed friendship for Ger- 
many but instead maintained the strictest neutrality. From 
the standpoint of general culture alone, then, if for no other 
reason, are not the contributions of Hispanic America from 
1810 to 1826 and again from 1917 to 1918 in the long strug- 
gle to drive autocracy from the face of the earth as worthy 
of consideration and of our study as are those contributions 
of other larger, more populous, and wealthier countries? Is 
it not time to stop considering Hispanic American move- 
ments as isolated, unimportant, and non-understandable and 
give them their proper setting and emphasis in the develop- 
ment of humanity in general? 

Then again, if the revolutionary period of Hispanic Amer- 
ican history is worth studying from the standpoint of world 
developments, as I have tried to show is the case, there is 
yet a more particular reason to us in the United States why 
this same movement should be studied here even more closely. 
When they declared their independence, at the outset of the 
revolutionary struggle, all of these new republics showed the 
greatest respect and admiration for the United States, proof 
of which is found in the fact that at first all but four of 
the new republics declared for a federal form of government 
modeled after that of the United States. 1 Not only that, 
but as the struggle progressed they looked to the United 
States for material and moral support. Here they knew 
that the idea of liberty had had its birth and that here free- 
men had successfully maintained their dearly purchased 
freedom. Accordingly they often sent, and especially was 
this true of Mexico, such men as Gutierrez and Martinez to 



a Today only four of the Hispanic American republics have a fed- 
eral form of government; they are, Argentine, Brazil, Venezuela, and 
Mexico. 



-14— 



secure much needed aid in the United States. These men 
carried back not only soldiers but advanced liberal ideas and 
principles as well, and it was these principles which were 
reflected in the liberal acts of the newly established Mexican 
republic a few years later. In fact it was the triumph of 
these principles that prepared the way for the entry of 
Moses Austin into Texas, followed by warm invitations to 
his successors to follow him. From all of this there devel- 
oped the well-known movement which, when later a shame- 
less Santa Anna temporarily downed these liberal prin- 
ciples, gave the United States everything north of the pres- 
ent southern boundary. Search the pages of United States 
history as written with regard to the American movement 
into Texas, or the United States sources for the yet unwrit- 
ten history of this movement, but the above conclusions will 
not be found there. They are only to be found in the letters, 
documents, and official archives of the patriotic and tri- 
umphant revolutionaries of early Mexico. From the stand- 
point of Texas in particular, and from that of the United 
States in general, then, is no't the study of nineteenth century 
Mexico worth our while for this reason alone? 

Finally, in the national period of the various Hispanic 
American republics there are to be noted numerous out- 
standing incidents and movements, which, in themselves, 
or because of their connection and significance with United 
States, or world affairs, are worthy of our earnest considera- 
tion and study, and, in most cases, of our admiration. This 
is not the time to enter into a discussion of these various 
events and movements ; such would indeed constitute in brief 
the nineteenth century history of the twenty Hispanic Amer- 
ican republics to the south of us. However, a few of them 
may be mentioned in passing, as: the long and desperate 
and finally victorious struggle, against French soldiery and 
an Austrian Arch-duke, of Mexico's incomparable patriot, 
Benito Juarez, in defense, so far as Mexico alone was con- 
cerned, of exactly those principles laid down in what we 
know as the Monroe Doctrine; of the pioneer and never- 
dying work in education of Sarmiento, Argentine's school- 
master president ; of the gradual and bloodless transition of 

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Brazil from a monarchy to a republic just thirty- two years 
ago, and, in that same country a few years later of the 
achievements in international arbitration of Brazil's grand 
old man, Rio Branco — achievements which so far as perma- 
nent results are concerned put to shame the accomplishments 
of our own William Jennings Bryan in that same work ; of 
the nineteenth century colonial policy of Spain in the West 
Indies which led to the Spanish American war of 1898 and 
the freeing of Cuba and the annexation of Porto Rico by 
the United States ; of the promulgation of the "Drago Doc- 
trine" by Venezuela's great statesman, the principle of 
which, namety, that force should never be resorted to by 
nations to collect debts of their nationals, was accepted by 
the Hague Tribunal; of the events leading to the creation 
within the last few months of the newest of nations, the 
Central American Confederation; of the Tacna-Arica dis- 
pute between Bolivia, Peru, and Chile, which is really the 
Alsace-Lorraine question of South America, and which has 
been submitted to the League of Nations for its considera- 
tion — the first international problem outside of events con- 
nected with the great war to be submitted to that body; 
and, finally, of the movement within the last few decades in 
Mexico for a more representative and democratic form of 
government, which movement culminated in +he great revo- 
lution of 1910 to 1920 in our neighboring country just below 
the Rio Grande. 

So much for facts connected with the historical evoultion 
of Hispanic America in the colonial, the revolutionary, and 
the national periods that are worthy of being taught in our 
schools and colleges. In conclusion let me leave this thought 
with you for your earnest consideration. The present inter- 
national boundary between the United States and Mexico 
is more than a political boundary between the two countries 
in question ; it is the line which separates Hispanic American 
culture — extending, on the one hand, to the Straits of Magel- 
lan — and the Anglo-American civilization — extending, on 
the other hand, to Alaska and Labrador. And with respect 
to this line Texas by virtue of its geographic position occu- 
pies a most important and responsible location. For Mexico, 



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in large measure, regards the attitude of Texas as that of 
the United States at large, and the United States at large, in 
a very great measure, bases its opinion of Mexico upon that 
held by Texas on the same subject. And Hispanic America 
in general is very greatly influenced in its opinion of the 
United States by our relations with Mexico. Such being true 
does it not behoove us, especially as Texans, to learn more 
about our neighbors, their historical development, and their 
institutions ? This will not only be worth while from a cul- 
tural standpoint, but it will help to initiate a new era of 
cordiality and friendship between two great peoples who for 
so long a time have misunderstood each other, and may fore- 
shadow the organization of a real, workable, concert of na- 
tions in the western hemisphere. 

Charles W- Hackett, 
Adjunct Professor, Hispanic American 
History, The University of Texas, Austin 



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